Leisure Valley

The green bands between sectors aren't leftover land; they're a single designed park system called Leisure Valley, flowing about 8 km through the city along the bed of a seasonal stream. Le Corbusier called it the city's "lungs," and it works exactly like that.

Each stretch has its own character:

• Rajendra Park (Sector 1): the wildest and emptiest part, near the Capitol.
• Bougainvillea Garden (Sector 3): arches and pergolas drowning in bougainvillea, at their best in spring.
• The Rose Garden (Sector 16): the famous centerpiece.
• Terraced Garden (Sector 33) and the Garden of Fragrance (Sector 36): quieter local favorites further south.

Officially the city lists these gardens separately, without saying which of them the valley swallows; walk the strip and the boundary stops mattering:

• Shanti Kunj (Sector 16): five small gardens divided by a natural stream, planted with herbs and medicinal shrubs.
• Hibiscus Garden (Sector 36): eight acres and forty-odd varieties of hibiscus, open since 1974.
• Topiary Park (Sector 35): creepers and bushes clipped into bears and elephants, made for children.
• Smriti Upavan (Sector 1): a memorial grove where families plant a tree for someone they have lost; the first was a banyan for Nehru.

You won't walk all of it, and you don't need to: the point is that you can cross half the city through parkland. Pick the segment near wherever you already are, or rent a bicycle and ride the valley end to end in a morning.

An 8-kilometer river of parks